CRTC issues annual report on the fortunes of Canadian radio
Every year about this time, the CRTC issues a report on how broadcast radio and television is doing in this country. And as more people move their media consumption online, the news for 2017 is fairly predictable.
Commercial radio stations reported revenues of $1.52 billion for the year ending August 31, 2017. That represents an overall decline of 1.9%. However, stations that broadcast in languages other than English and French saw revenues go up by more than 5%. Vancouver did especially well in this area.
The worst hit area? Radio stations on the prairies.
When you factor TV into the equation, overall broadcasting revenue was $17.3 billion, which is down 3.3% from the previous year. That shows exactly how much cord-cutting and pick’n’pay cable packages are hurting, not to mention services like Netflix.
Conventional TV got nailed, seeing a revenue drop of 4.1%. That’s the sixth consecutive year the sector has seen a drop.
Revenue for cable, satellite and IPTV was down, too, dropping by 2.3%. The number of subscribers to these services was also down by 1.9%.
Even on-demand was down by 1.2%.
The good news? “The pace at which revenues are shrinking is showing signs of slowing down.” That’s…something, I guess.
The CRTC isn’t just standing by, though. Earlier this year, they issued a report asking for input on how we should deal with the digital media market in this country. You can read about that report here.
